tequila bomb

Our insider tells us that just like HP’s tm series notebook, the webOS tablet will have a screen that recognizes a wacom pen while functioning as a capacitive touchscreen. That means the webOS tablet–unlike the iPad–will be an actual tablet. You will be able to take handwritten notes on it and easily search your notes.

Steve Jobs famously said 6 months ago..

“If you see a stylus, they blew it.”

And to a certain degree I agree with him. The simplicity of the iPad’s iOS driven finger touch interface is what makes it such a mass appeal device.

But there really is no reason to deny people the option of more precision. They don’t have to carry a stylus around with them all of the time.

We already know that it is possible to do **”pressure sensitivity”, up to a point on the iPad, and even the iPod Touch and iPhone. Apple are just reluctant to expose that functionality to developers – at the moment? I would personally pay money to have this feature on an iPad (as an option), so that I could use it as a more precise creative tool – if I chose to.

Ultimately what will kill the PalmPad though is that it doesn’t have iOS, and the fact that HP are clueless.

**The “pressure sensitivity” I refer to is actually a record of the size of area depressed on the iDevice’s screen. So with a soft stylus you can effect a kind of poor-mans Wacom functionality via physical pressure on the stylus, causing its tip to spread, and detecting the change in size of the area of contact on the device’s screen, in software.

[O]ther companies involved in the talks included Silicon Valley’s increasingly competitive rivals, Apple and Google, as well as BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, we have learned from a source familiar with the negotiations.

It’s nice to have some of this illuminated a little more. I discussed at the time why I thought it might be a good idea for Apple to buy Palm. But concluded that I didn’t think they would. In the end I am guessing they pragmatically set a maximum price at which Palm’s patent portfolio would be worth acquiring as ammunition in upcoming legal battles with Google and / or HTC.

Apple was mostly interested in Palm’s huge library of intellectual property and patents (450+ patents on file, another 400+ applications on file). And unlike some other bidders, Apple even seemed committed to funding Palm’s operations, perhaps to challenge RIM’s dominance in the keyboarded segment of the smartphone industry, our source says.

It’s a shame the purchase didn’t come off, as I always thought that even though Apple’s primary interest was in stashing away patents they probably would be one of the companies that might keep the spark of Palm alive in some way. If they could get it as part of a package deal of patents – at the right price.

RIM basically had the deal in its hands and “had to work incredibly hard to blow it,” our source recalls. RIM initially came in higher than HP, but HP upped its bid, our source says.

A final outcome that all three companies will come to regret, each in their own way.

Google, likely interested in Palm’s intellectual property, supposedly only wanted it because Google thought Apple might want it. But Google supposedly didn’t know Apple was actually bidding for Palm, so it didn’t proceed.

Shades of AdMob all over again. And it would have been almost as disastrous as HP buying Palm. They would have been absorbed.

Nokia didn’t even notice what was going on, apparently. But then they have enough internal troubles right now. Still, it might have been a sound move for them. Not so much from a legal standpoint. But to breath life into their OS.

Overall, I still wish that either Lenovo or Apple had saved Palm.

Adobe hasn’t given any signs that it’s close to porting Flash to webOS, Palm said in an AT&T online app development seminar on Thursday. When asked about the multiple delays, a representative said that Palm didn’t ‘know what the hold-up is’ with getting it ready. Adobe itself hasn’t commented on the state of the webOS version or of other platforms.

Surprise!

Are Adobe still aiming for 50 Bazillion Flash handsets by next week?

Perhaps Adobe thought that HP / Palm aren’t making mobile phones anymore?

Interesting retrospective, and analysis on where Apple, Microsoft, Palm and Google are all at in terms of their mobile OSs, languages and APIs. And more specifically where Apple is with its desktop OS, languages and APIs compared to their rivals.

The fate of individual competitors aside, the fact that the most dangerous players are all coming out of the gate with languages and APIs a generation ahead of what Apple offers should be a huge warning sign. And again, this is all happening in the memory-starved, CPU-constrained mobile world.

But does it matter in mobile land right now? These current devices are actually less complex to code for than Commodore Amigas and Atari XL computers, in many ways. They really are. And as John points out in his article, one of the reasons that the iPhone’s UI is so responsive is because the OS is in essence not a desktop OS of today. It has more in common with desktop OSs of yesteryear. It is an OS for a different sort of device. A low power, mobile device with more in common with late 8 bit computers and early 16 bit computers than anything else – crucially at the architectural level for coders.

On the desktop, Apple is even farther behind.

That is perhaps more of an issue. But then where Apple’s offerings fall behind “Microsoft’s tech”, they conversely beat the competition with elegance. A valuable feature of any API that you craft in day to day, that should not be overlooked. The last time I used MFC, let alone .NET I almost had a heart attack!

I like John’s articles, even if I don’t always agree with him. I’d certainly recommend reading this article in its entirety, at least once. Just to be aware of the real issues he is concerned about.

Here, for example though, I kind of disagree… (But it is a personal thing for me as I don’t really wear my application developer hat very often.)

It is 2010, after all. “The future” or not, it’s getting a bit silly for GUI application developers to perpetually be one bad pointer dereference away from scribbling all over their application’s memory. The world has moved on; Apple should too.

I am a game programmer. We are a totally different breed. And in a perfect world I would never want to have my memory managed for me, on any level really. Specifically because of the performance issues that John acknowledges can come with this kind of strategy.

But then I think anyone who can’t write their own GUI, doesn’t insist on the best performance everywhere, and has never got their hands dirty with machine code is a puff.

Furthermore, if you are such a sloppy programmer that you lose track of pointers then I don’t even want to know you.

But then I am a dinosaur.

And so continues one of the biggest constants in software development: the unerring sense among developers that the level of abstraction they’re current working at is exactly the right one for the task at hand. Anything lower-level is seen as barbaric, and anything higher-level is a bloated, slow waste of resources. This remains true even as the overall level of abstraction across the industry marches ever higher.

Some of us always want to know what is going on, even right down at the silicon level, in devices we program for. I am one of those  weirdoes. So any level of abstraction is an irritation to me, and one that I am increasingly forced to deal with on a day to day basis.

So for me anything higher than one step removed from ASM, without the opportunity to bail to ASM at a moments notice, is still uncomfortable, and requires me to constantly maintain a mental overview of what the unwieldy language I am using is actually doing with bits and bytes. I think std libraries are bloat, for example.

First the C guys can’t imagine writing in assembly anymore, but C++’s vtable dispatch is still just too slow to consider. Then the C++ guys look back with chagrin at the bad-old-days of rolling their own half-assed object systems in C, but Java is dismissed as a ridiculous pig. Still later, the Java guys sneer at pointers and manual memory management, but JavaScript is ridiculed as a toy “scripting” language for validating web forms. And on and on.

I still code in ASM, where required. Particularly using vector maths both on iPhone and desktop projects. For me Cocoa, and Objective-C are simply a gateway through which I hook my C, C++, OpenGL and ASM into user land.

So I even think the C guys are traitors to the cause.

With regards to the rest of the article, I don’t think John is wrong. I just think he’s freaking out a bit too early. As he kinds of admits himself :

My obsessive fretting notwithstanding, Copland 2010 has not come to pass. Despite this, I (obviously) feel the issue is not going away, and is only getting more pressing with time. Of course, as the person who was already freaking out about this five years ago, my definition of “more pressing” may differ widely from yours.

Last week, Steve Jobs promised that his iPhone and iPads would be open to outside ad networks. Yesterday, Apple made good on his promise, by changing the terms of its developer agreement. But the company may not have opened the door all the way.

3.3.9 You and Your Applications may not collect, use, or disclose to any third party, user or device data without prior user consent, and then only under the following conditions:

- The collection, use or disclosure is necessary in order to provide a service or function that is directly relevant to the use of the Application. For example, without Apple’s prior written consent, You may not use third party analytics software in Your Application to collect and send device data to a third party for aggregation, processing, or analysis.

- The collection, use or disclosure is for the purpose of serving advertising to Your Application; is provided to an independent advertising service provider whose primary business is serving mobile ads (for example, an advertising service provider owned by or affiliated with a developer or distributor of mobile devices, mobile operating systems or development environments other than Apple would not qualify as independent); and the disclosure is limited to UDID, user location data, and other data specifically designated by Apple as available for advertising purposes.

The bit in bold effectively singles out Google’s AdMob, and any future service from Microsoft, Palm (if they even exist in the future), HTC or Nokia etc.

But mainly it just singles out Google.

Admob’s CEO Omar Hamoui, who was in negotiations just months ago to be purchased by Apple had this to say :

Apple proposed new developer terms on Monday that, if enforced as written, would prohibit app developers from using AdMob and Google’s advertising solutions on the iPhone. These advertising related terms both target companies with competitive mobile technologies (such as Google), as well as any company whose primary business is not serving mobile ads. This change threatens to decrease – or even eliminate – revenue that helps to support tens of thousands of developers. The terms hurt both large and small developers by severely limiting their choice of how best to make money. And because advertising funds a huge number of free and low cost apps, these terms are bad for consumers as well.

The man who “Invented the non-intrusive banner notification system used in webOS” and also did all sorts of other work for the OS, Rich Dellinger, is leaving Palm [HP] to return to his earlier employer, Apple, as a Senior User Interface Designer.

Dellinger’s other work included:

Acted as visual designer, interaction designer, and engineer on Palm webOS.

Co-developed the Application Framework used by webOS. Created the CSS structure and defined HTML layout and structure conventions in Mojo Application Framework, and for core Palm applications.

Co-invented software and hardware interaction models for a new generation of Linux-based, Palm-branded mobile devices.

Ouch!

We didn’t buy Palm to be in the smartphone business. And I tell people that, but it doesn’t seem to resonate well. We bought it for the IP. The WebOS is one of the two ground-up pieces of software that is built as a web operating environment [...] We have tens of millions of HP small form factor web-connected devices [...] Now imagine that being a web-connected environment where now you can get a common look and feel and a common set of services laid against that environment. That is a very value proposition.

He is basically saying that they want Palm’s patents to protect their product line of small web enabled devices moving forwards.

What I am curious about is this :

Is this what caused Palm engineers to leave HP, or is it because Palm engineers have left HP?

Either way, I rest my case :

I don’t see this going anywhere fast. But I may be wrong. I have been before.

Don Reisinger mulls over the implications for HP after the main architect of the future of webOS defects to Google :

When Google confirmed on Thursday that Matias Duarte left Palm for greener pastures at the search giant, some wondered what HP’s reaction would be.

…

HP has been tight-lipped on its feelings about Duarte’s departure. But that silence is deafening. HP is likely very concerned by Duarte’s move. And it should be.

I didn’t expect things to go well when HP absorbed Palm. I recalled at the time their history with Compaq and the iPaq. Real innovation with the iPaq effectively stopped when HP acquired Compaq, in my opinion.

I expect that any engineer who believed they were working on something revolutionary when at Palm, finds the prospect of getting stuck inside a company that exists to shift boxes unpalatable.

When any company acquires another, its goal is to not only get the product or service it wants, but to get the talent that went along with it. Now that Duarte is gone, the main talent has left HP. And with him went all the neat new ideas he might have planned for the mobile operating system. That can’t make HP feel too well.

HP are probably experiencing some of the frustration Apple felt after their purchase of PA Semi, which may have led them to buy Intrinsity later. Unfortunately for HP, Duarte’s knowledge and roadmap for webOS is not something they can acquire elsewhere.

Worst of all, speculation abounds that HP will be seeing a mass exodus at Palm as more of the team that worked on webOS get enticing offers from competitors trying to pluck the unique ideas they might have for their own operations.

It is very likely that other key engineers from Palm will also receive lucrative offers from elsewhere in the tech industry. HP, I expect, will get left holding some very expensive IP which it will achieve very little with.

HP is in a dangerous position. The company spent $1.2 billion just to get its hands on webOS. And as a public company, its investors want to see it turn a positive return on that investment.

Something that bean counters who run box-shifting corporations need to learn is that you cannot just buy innovation with the purchase of a company. You need to court the engineers and designers that come hand in hand with the ownership of the IP that their company embodies.

I did originally wonder why HP kept Jon Rubinstein around at Palm. Perhaps the idea was that he would be able to retain key employees. Something he obviously failed to do.

Ashok Kumar, an analyst with Rodman & Renshaw, made the fascinating (and highly controversial) assertion in a research note on Monday that when the dust settles, the market could be down to just two players: Google (GOOG) Android and Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone.

[Kumar] thinks his $300 target is ‘conservative’ and urges investors to make AAPL a core stock.

He is spot on there. If I had any more spare cash sitting around right now not already invested in Apple, I’d still be buying at $250+.

Kumar in one short note throws out some [more] astounding predictions:

Except I don’t think they are astounding. They seem like common sense to me.

• For starters, he says that Apple “will likely end” its remaining exclusive relationships [i.e. AT&T] with the launch of the 4G iPhone; he says that should trigger wider distribution.

I think this could be the “one more thing” at the World Wide Developers Conference, or at the event rumoured to occur shortly after WWDC.

• If Nokia’s new version of Symbian fails to gain traction, he contends, the company wilt be forced to adopt either Android or Microsoft Windows Phone 7 as its primary OS. He contends that “the odds are stacked against the survival of Symbian.”

I agree. I think Nokia may throw Microsoft a lifeline here.
But they will probably come to regret it.

• As for the Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) acquisition of Palm (PALM), he thinks that “without significant increase in spending to woo channel and software partners, HP’s acquisition of Palm will likely fail.”

I think this partnership will go the same way as the Compaq iPaq. A slow death.

• Research In Motion (RIMM), he thinks “is not likely to do much better than maintain share” with its pending BlackBerry OS refresh.

I think he is spot on here, again. BlackBerry is the Nokia of smart-phones. It has a core following, but that too will dwindle like Nokia’s core following of old has.

Windows, he says, “remains a wild card.”

I am pretty sure that Windows Phone 7 will be an unmitigated disaster. Not because it’s crap. I actually like some of what Microsoft seems to be trying to do with the User Interface. I won’t ever forgive them for going with a proprietary graphics API though.

I think it will fail simply because it’s the Zune of smart-phones.

No-one will care apart from hardcore Microsoft geeks.

The two companies announced Wednesday that they have come to a definitive agreement for HP to buy Palm for about $5.70 per share of Palm common stock, for a total value of about $1.2 billion.

It’s a bit sad for Palm that there wasn’t even a bidding war of any kind.

Palm’s current chairman and CEO, Jon Rubinstein, is expected to remain with the company.

But as what? And why?

Anyway, we have a company which has manufacturing problems being bought by another company that makes crappy hardware. HTC would have been a much better suitor. Even Lenovo (my bet) would have been a better bet for Palm.

Anyone remember Compaq and the iPaq?

I don’t see this going anywhere fast. But I may be wrong. I have been before.